Garmin International yesterday announced they have introduced a new, slimline pilot watch to their range.
Called the D2 Air, the new watch has a 43 mm bezel, is only 12 mm thick and weighs only 46.3 gm,
"The D2 Air is an exciting option for current and aspiring pilots, as well as the aviation enthusiast,” said Carl Wolf, vice president of aviation sales and marketing.
“The D2 Air offers a bright and striking display with valuable capabilities that benefit pilots in the air while offering advanced smartwatch features on the ground, placing the D2 Air aviator smartwatch in a category of its own.”
With a large amoled touchscreen, a smaller, lighter form factor and multiple aviation features, the D2 Air has been designed as a unit that can be easily worn both inside and outside the cockpit.
Paired to a compatible smartphone, the D2 Air has tools for all phases of flight, including weather, direct-to navigation, airport information, flight logging and Pulse Ox.
The D2 Air has the ability to display multiple time zones, including UTC, as well as METAR and TAF aviation weather reports or forecasts. Airport information such as runway orientation, with wind components, runway lengths, airport frequencies and traffic pattern altitudes are easily accessible via the touch screen.
The watch can be pre-loaded with a worldwide navigation database containing NAVAIDs and Intersections, a waypoint info page, direct-to navigation, a three-axis compass with a horizontal situation indicator (HSI), and an altimeter with adjustable barometric setting,
The D2 Air utilises Garmin Pilot flight plan transfer, giving an easy way to access to flight plan information by transferring flight plans into the watch. Aviation alerts such as speed, time, distance, elevation, and a fuel timer are also available during flight.
When paired with a compatible device, users can receive smart notifications for incoming calls, text messages, calendar reminders and more on the 31-mm AMOLED touchscreen display.
Garmin says the battery life is up to five days while using smart notifications and pre-flight planning tools, and up to 10 hours when continuously using GPS and Pulse Ox while flying.
With a RRP of US$499, making it a more economical option for pilots. By comparison, the similarly spec’d D2 Delta PX aviator has a RRP of US$1249.
More information is on the Garmin website.